[woodcote]

Pancake Power NHRA Top Fuel Eliminators

The sacrificial first vs last bout started Round One...

   

Clive's dragster was on great form - but Nico's was horribly tight. Despite loosening some screws, a long warm-up and finally a drop of Voodoo (other brands of comm drops are available...) the Mav TV top fueler was simply awful in qualifying. Sadly, it was no better in the race. Clive won by 0.483 - the ETs 0.703 and 1.195.

   

Fourth vs fifth - Iain vs Andy - was a great race. Iain got the early lead and hung on - the FRAM dragster's usual late surge not enough this time. The margin was 0.028 and the ETs 0.787 and 0.800.

   

Jerome's Top Fuel debut was over in Round One - Bill winning this bout by 0.176 seconds. With a 0.857 ET, there's definitely room for smoothing out that 4-Gear, but Bill's run of 0.688 was simply outstanding.

   

Pete's new dragster is a good one. Third in qualifying was followed by a decent recovery against Rebecca's fast-starting Geico machine, giving a 0.028 second win and a spot in Round Two. The ETs were 0.783 and 0.818.

Top Fuel Semi-Finals

Two dragsters had dominated qualifying - they were odds-on to make the final, weren't they?

   

Clive had no problems against Iain - a 0.095 win with the ETs 0.695 and 0.801.

   

Could Pete challenge Bill? Another very useful run of 0.771 was good, but nowhere near enough. Bill's 0.687 was super-smooth and gave him a 0.102 win margin.

The final is next...